Harris County Public Library - Magilla Gorillahttp://www.hcpl.net/taxonomy/term/1282/0
enOn Influence, Influenza and Outright Thieveryhttp://www.hcpl.net/content/influence-influenza-and-outright-thievery
<p><img hspace="5" alt="Photo Credit: Glad Day for Surfin,' after William &quot;Hodad&quot; Blake by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com " align="right" width="115" height="160" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3255/2726501428_afb37fb174.jpg" />Lately, I have been thinking a lot about this <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=familiar%20quotations&amp;index=.GH">aphorism</a>.&nbsp;It seems to have&nbsp;as many originators as it does&nbsp;permutations. The gist of it is, &ldquo;good writers borrow; great writers steal.&rdquo;</p>
<p>I first heard it from a <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=ellison,%20harlan&amp;index=.AH">mid-list science fiction writer</a> who claimed he had stolen it from <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=quotations%20yogi%20berra&amp;index=.GH">the guy</a> who had stolen it from the guy who had stolen it from <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=eliot,%20thomas%20stearns&amp;index=.AH">T.S. Eliot</a>. Eliot stole it from <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=oscar%20wilde%20aphorisms&amp;index=.GH">Oscar Wilde</a>, but from whom Wilde had stolen it&nbsp;is anybody&rsquo;s guess. He, undoubtedly said it more pithily than his predecessor.&nbsp;To show you how these things warp through time (and perhaps how far the literary discourse has devolved)--according to our space-age, algorithmic oracle, <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=good+writers+borrow+from+other+writers%2C+great+writers+steal&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;aq=t&amp;rlz=1R1GGIC_en___US344&amp;client=firefox-a">Google</a>, the current originator of the saying is one <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=Aaron%20Sorkin&amp;index=.GH#focus">Aaron Sorkin</a>, who may be a heckuva human being, and a man of immense accomplishments, but I, for one, am not sure he has the <em>gravitas</em> to be the bearer, even temporarily, of such awesome power. It's like having <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=magilla%20gorilla&amp;index=.GH">Magilla Gorilla</a> with his finger on <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=kubrick%20dr%20strangelove&amp;index=.GH">The Button</a>.<br />
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The point I'm trying to make here (I think) is that influence is inescapable. Poets can't help stealing from all those who came before. Humans, as a species, are born <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=rene%20girard%20scapegoat&amp;index=.GH">kleptomaniacs</a>. Culture is an endless process of appropriation. Art is an act of theft, whether it be&nbsp;stealing the appearance of two figs and a wine bottle and remaking it as an oil-on-canvas still life, or plucking from the communal store of words to make a <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=sestina&amp;index=.GH#focus">sestina</a>. The fact is, we could play <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=guare,%20john%20six%20degrees%20of%20separation&amp;index=.GH">Six Degrees</a> of <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=six%20degrees%20of%20kevin%20bacon&amp;index=.GH"><em>Francis</em> Bacon</a> linking any given&nbsp;poet back to the once-reputed author of the works of <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=shakespeare%20sonnets&amp;index=.GH">William Shakespeare</a> (himself an accomplished thief). Even if a poet has never read the <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=king%20james%20bible&amp;index=.GH"><strong>King James Bible</strong></a>, say, he or she has read <img hspace="5" alt="Cover Art: Cambridge Companion to William Blake. Art work by Wm. Blake" align="left" width="120" height="182" src="http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&amp;isbn=9780521786775/LC.GIF&amp;client=harrisp&amp;upc=&amp;oclc=" />many poets who have, and whose work is deeply informed by its rhythms and motifs. It is no accident that <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ebmErco-iKMC&amp;pg=PA95&amp;lpg=PA95&amp;dq=influence+AND+influenza+AND+poetry&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=sFmIOWfMLG&amp;sig=qDnkUBJy4GdRw2bVqfzjuYF3ehM&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=7f3YSqKDLon-MZWuoeEH&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3&amp;ved=0CBoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=influence%20AND%20influenza%20AND%20poetry&amp;f=false">influence and influenza</a> come from the same root. Certain poets throughout the ages seem to have been carriers of their own particular and virulent contagion.</p>
<p><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=william%20blake%20illuminations&amp;index=.GH">William Blake</a> is now usually lumped in with the <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=english%20romantic%20poetry&amp;index=.GH">English Romantics</a>, but his was a unique vision that nevertheless infected <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=mott%20the%20hoople%20all%20the%20young%20dudes&amp;index=.GH">all the young dudes</a> who scrambled after him.</p>
<p><a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=pound,%20ezra&amp;index=.AH">Ezra Pound</a>'s smudgy fingerprints are all over Eliot's <a href="http%3://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=waste%20land%20facsimile%20transcript&amp;index=.GH"><strong>The Waste Land</strong></a>, but the effects of his strain <img hspace="5" alt="Cover Art: American Poetry: The Modernist Ideal" align="right" width="130" height="203" src="http://www.syndetics.com/index.aspx?type=xw12&amp;isbn=9780312123888/LC.GIF&amp;client=harrisp&amp;upc=&amp;oclc=" />of literary modernism can be seen in the work of (the unjustly underrated) <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=doolittle,%20hilda&amp;index=.AH">H.D.</a>, <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=in%20our%20time%20ernest%20hemingway&amp;index=.GH">Hemingway</a> and <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=modernism%20AND%20ezra%20pound&amp;index=.GH">many others</a>.</p>
<p>The University of Houston's own <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=hoagland,%20tony&amp;index=.AH">Tony Hoagland</a> sees the poet <a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/229">Dean Young</a> as a veritable <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=typhoid%20mary&amp;index=.GH">Typhoid Mary</a>. (Read the full text of Hoagland's &quot;The Dean Young Effect&quot; from American Poetry Review, Jul/Aug 2009, Vol. 38 Issue 4 by accessing Harris County Public Library's databases: <a href="http://www.hcpl.net/ref/dbsubs.htm#Magazines">Masterfile Premier</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, for an interesting discussion of influence between mentors and proteges, read <a href="http://catalog.hcpl.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?menu=search&amp;aspect=subtab13&amp;term=12 x 12: Conversations in 21st-Century Poetry and Poetics&amp;index=.GH"><strong>12 x 12: Conversations in 21st-Century Poetry and Poetics</strong></a>.</p>
<p>Photo Credit: Glad Day for Surfin,' after William &quot;Hodad&quot; Blake by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/">Mike Licht</a>, NotionsCapital.com</p>
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<script type='text/javascript'>stLight.options({publisher:''});</script>http://www.hcpl.net/content/influence-influenza-and-outright-thievery#commentsAaron SorkinaphorismsEzra PoundJohn GuareKevin BaconMagilla GorillaOscar WildePoetryRene Girardscapegoat theoryShakespeareT. S. EliotWilliam BlakeYogi BerraMon, 19 Oct 2009 13:48:36 +0000David Cherry2411 at http://www.hcpl.net